AN APPENDIX. 443
we have seen. It is so far from it, that it is necessary to make way for it, in case of a righteous law transgressed, and the pubhc order of the universal Governor and government of all disturbed. And this God directs unto. Lev. iv. 31, " The priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him." This atonement was a legal satisfaction, and it is by God himself premised to remission or pardon. And Paul prays Philemon to forgive Onesimus, though he took upon himself to make satisfaction for all the wrong or damage that he had sustained, Epist. verses 18, 19. And when God was displeased with the friends of Job, he prescribes a way to them, or what they shall do, and what they shall get done for them, that they might be ac- cepted and pardoned. Job xlii. 7, 8, " The Lord said unto Eliphaz, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends : there- fore take unto you noAV seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering ; and my servant Job shall pray for you : for him will I accept : lest I deal with you after your folly." Pie plainly enjoineth an atonement, that he might freely pardon them. And both these, — namely, satisfaction and pardon, with their order and consistency, — were solemnly repre- sented by the great institution of the sacrifice of the scape-goat. For after all the sins of the people were put upon him, or the punishment of them transferred unto him in a t}^e and representation, with " Quod in ejus caput sit," the formal reason of all sacrifices propiti- atory, he was sent away with them ; denoting the oblation or forgive- ness of sin, after a translation made of its punishment. Lev. xvi. 21, 22. And whereas it is not expressly said that that goat suffered, or was slain, but was either ?I^|V. , " hircus," dTOTo/i-Trarof, " a goat sent away," or was sent to a rock called Azazel, in the wilderness, as Vatablus^ and Oleaster,^ with some others, think (which is not probable, seeing, though it might then be done whilst the people were in the wilderness of Smai, yet could not, by reason of its distance, when the people were settled in Canaan, be annually observed), it was from the poverty of the types, whereof no one could fully represent that grace which it had particular respect unto. What, therefore, was wanting in that goat was supplied in the other, which was slain as a sin-offering, verses 15, 16.
Neither doth it follow, that, on the supposition of the satisfaction pleaded for, the freedom, pardon, or acquitment of the person origi- nally guilty and liable to punishment must immediately and " ipso
' A celebrated Hebrew scholar. He was born in Picardy, and died 1547. His Notes on the Old Testament Scriptures, taken by his scholars from his obser- vations, and arranged by Robert Stephens, were published 1557.
■ A Portuguese Dominican and able scholar. He died in 1563, and left behind him Commeutari?s ou the Pentateuch. — Ed.
44-4 AX APPENDIX.
facto" ensue. It is not of the nature of eveiy solution or sati.sfaction, that deliverance must " ipso facto" follow. And the reason of it is, because this satisfaction, by a succedaneous substitution of one to undergo punishment for another, nuist be founded in a voluntary compact and agreement. For there is required unto it a relaxation of the law, though not as unto the 2'>unishment to be inflicted, yet as unto the i^erson to be punished. And it is otherwise in personal guilt than in pecuniary debts. In these, the debt itself is solely in- tended, the person only obliged with reference thereunto. In the other, the person is firstly and principally under the obligation. And therefore, when a pecuniar}'^ debt is paid, b}^ whomsoever it be paid, the obligation of the j^erson himself unto payment ceaseth " ipso facto." But in things criminal, the guilty person himself being firstly, immediately, and intentionally under the obligation unto punishment, when there is introduced by compact a vicarious solution, in the sub- stitution of another to suffer, though he suffer the same absolutely which those should have done for whom he suffers, yet, because of the acceptation of his person to suffer, Avhich might have been refused, and could not be admitted without some relaxation of the law, de- liverance of the guilty persons cannot ensue " ipso facto," but by the intervention of the terms fixed on in the covenant or agreement for an admittance of the substitution.
It appears, from what hath been spoken, that, in this matter of satisfaction, God is not considered as a creditor, and sin as a debt; and the law as an obligation to the payment of that debt, and the Lord Christ as paying it ; — though these notions may have been used by some for the illustration of the whole matter, and that not with- out countenance from sundry expressions in the Scripture to the same purpose. But God is considered as the infinitely holy and righteous author of the law, and supreme governor of all mankind, according to the tenor and sanction of it. Man is considered as a sinner, a ti'ansgressor of that law, and thereby obnoxious and liable to the punishment constituted in it and by it, — answerably unto the justice and holiness of its author. The substitution of Christ was merely voluntary on the part of God, and of himself, undertaking to be a sponsor, to answer for the sins of men by undergoing the puni.shment due unto them. To this end there was a relaxation of the law as to the persons that were to suffer, though not as to what was to be suf- fered Without the former, the substitution mentioned could not have been admitted; and on supposition of the latter, the suffer- ing of Christ could not have had the nature of pmiishment, properly so called: for punishment relates to the justice and righteousness in government of him that exacts it and inflicts it; and this the justice of God doth not but by the law. Nor could the law be any way